Thursday, December 17, 2015

Not without passion,
not without disgust,
not without
ennui, fear, longing,
desire and frustration,
apathy and zest—
not without some
levity, plenty of ceremony,
a little lust—
not exactly ironically,
but not fully conscious-
ly seriously either—I confess,

I tend
to love
to make
the most incredible small secret tricky intricate unfinished symphonies

out of spitting
the most delicious
bites back
onto the speechless
ceramic faces of their erstwhile
wan robin's egg blue dinner plates—but it's only because

I just,
so very
very much,
want everything
that I touch—to be
perfect, just the way it is
now—except, later. Not until
later. Not until much later. Not until
much much much much much much later—

Friday, November 20, 2015

Where fearless children dare to speak, in these darkand tall polished marble halls, their words like wildhorses begin to buck and gallop—urgent but direction-less. Or else, it's this throbbing movement of thirsty pitches ascending toward some funnily expendable climax, like some vessel is being filled to its brim—eagerly,but obvious-ly far too quickly.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Instructions—In a limitedtime-frame—one by one—each ofamaxi-mum ofsix-teen performers—shall runup this ramp and startpushing hisor her envelope—out of thisgiantbox that we'vestuck at the top;with justenoughforce—that it flies outand glides swiftlyand smoothly—untilultimate-ly swoopingdown—to landsquarely under that bus.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

what? ifthe world!is so much more—than thingsafter all; so much— moremight depend upon

the wayall the dumb stuffis arranged. The pecking order—of, sayfirst—stay alive,next—get satisfied,then after that—try as best you can to go backto feeling real again—as if

flicking back and forth like some desperate-ly thirsty and fire-eyedcloth bit of moth on the planet Mars—just feels more like pure pattern-making, like pure rhythm than melody. Tell me;does it ever occur? to old Patterson—that the content of suffering or reward

Thursday, September 10, 2015

And so, ever forward!—or rather, charging defiant-ly towardwhichever cardinal direction he deemed the most frontward at the momentto the lily pinkinsides of his irrespective guts (which he fedintermittently, when he felt it made sense, by the way)—with this!the very same apocryphal instrument in question:a tarnished—butan impudent! little irreligiousark of a spoon;now bent from stiff use, and cupped just enough to shuffle—such trifling amounts—of livid dustand foul ancient dirt around as to give his surrounding wallslittle cavities! and a very oddresemblance to Swiss cheese.And—all the while, it's been said, never intendingto use the resulting tunnelsto riflehis crusty way out of the place someday;rather, his gambit! seems to have been simply to grow old—and do so gracefully,while the whole dismal prison! he'd been living in since god-only-knows-when—softly moanedand shrugged and eventually just collapsed—from in-stability.

Dan Smart is a poet, writer, and musician who currently works as News Editor and contributor at online music publication Tiny Mix Tapes, contributing editor at nonprofit writing and tutoring center 826CHI, and producer/engineer at ECHO/NORMAL recording studio in Chicago, IL. He received his BA in Creative Writing from Illinois Wesleyan University in 2006, where he has since returned to guest-lecture on poetry on several occasions. Publications include Spoon River Poetry Review, The Legendary, Cease Cows Magazine, Red Fez, Hooligan Magazine, poetry/criticism blog Structure And Surprise. His daily-poetry blog, Rhythm Is The Instrument, has been active since 2013 and presently contains over 1,500 works.